Page 132 of Breaker

He keeps saying it, getting more and more agitated. The sharp slap of Fallon’s hand connecting to the man’s cheek makes me jolt, and the man stops talking.

“This man is a dangerous man,” Fallon tells me. “And we’re going to ensure he understands that there are consequences for being wicked.”

I’m about to ask Fallon why he didn’t just toss him in solitary or take his belt to his back when Fallon opens the box.

My mouth gets sour, bile rising in my throat.

“This man has done something heinous,” Fallon tells me, removing a tool from the box. I step back, not wanting to be near it. “Something that only bad, sick men do.”

My eyes grow wide. “Did he kill someone?”

“Worse, my syn,” Fallon says, eyes dropping to the instrument. “Far worse.”

I can’t imagine anything worse. I know there are other sins nearly as bad, but murder sits at the top of the list. Stealing is bad too, but I doubt Fallon would have this man down here, tied up and gagged, for just stealing.

“He did something terrible to Emilia.”

My blood chills, like someone injected ice into my veins. My voice scrapes up my throat when I say, “What did he do?”

I’m not sure if I want to know. Whatever he did must be bad. Did he kill Nanny? My head spins at the thought. I stumble back some, my chest feeling a little too tight, and I cross my arms, grasping my biceps. My foot taps on the dirty concrete floor. Just once. It echoes loud enough that it drowns out my ragged breathing.

“Do you understand that when I teach my sons a lesson, it is for your own good?” Fallon asks.

The question slices through me, ripping into my thoughts. I peel my eyes from the man and look at Fallon. He’s still holding the instrument, but he’s looking at me now, eyes fixed on my face with a sinister gleam in them. Dread creeps into my gut.

“This man needs to learn a lesson,” Fallon says. “One that will stay with him for the rest of his life.”

“What did he do?” I ask, whispering for some reason again. Maybe because this feels wrong. All of it. The man down here. The sludgy feeling in my gut. But what feels even worse is the thought of this man hurting Nanny.

“I know you won’t fully understand what I’m about to say,” Fallon says. he takes a deep breath. “This man hurt Emilia. In ways men can hurt women. He forced things on her. His hands. His body.”

I imagine this man trying to kiss Nanny and my blood burns.

She’s my Nanny. She’s Fallon’s Emilia. Emilia is pretty and soft and bright sunshine and flowery dresses. The thought of his gross, big hands on her face as he tried to kiss her, making her cry, sends hot anger through my chest. Makes it grow tight. Like it does when I get that bad feeling inside me. That dark, thick sensation that feels like sticky vines wrapping around my ribs, poking into my lungs, and it’s hard to breathe.

When I think about her not wanting him near her, my blood boils. When I think about the other possibilities flooding my mind, that sticky tightness in my chest travels up my throat and nearly chokes me.

Hunter talks all the time about the girls in the village and what they do to each other when he visits. I know what men and women do when they like one another. And if this big man did those things Hunter talks about to Nanny, and she didn’t wanthim to, then he deserves to be tied up and gagged and kept down here.

He deserves worse.

He deserves a lesson, like Fallon said.

One he’ll remember.

My teeth grind, anger making my hands twitch. My fingers curl into fists.

No. This isn’t just anger. This feels like destruction. Like a need to destroy.

“What lesson should he learn today, son?”

“Not to touch what’s ours.” I step toward the man, my eyes locked on his face. I want to remember what he looks like. His pale skin, pores filled with grit and dirt and other muck. It would feel good to smash my fist into his face. His hands are big—attached to thick meaty wrists. I imagine taking a dull knife and sawing through the fat, slicing them off. He’s got a gut, like Cook’s getting, and he’s got short arms and legs. He’s stocky, not built like a soldier at all.

My teeth gnash together, the urge to crack my fist, my boot, anything into his skull so strong I shake. My chest squeezes, my lungs burning with each rapid breath.

“And how should you teach him this lesson, Breaker?”

It takes a second for the full sentence to slip past my anger. At first, I don’t think I heard him correctly through the thundering in my head, so I rip my gaze from the man and look at Fallon. Then I hear the rest in my head.

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